"I can't help it," said Lance to himself, after a weary sleepless night;
"I don't feel as if I could go and tell tales. I'm not sure; and if I
was wrong, and these men were punished for what they did not do, I
should never be happy again."
Lance had made up his mind that he would have no more to do with the
people down by the cliff, for he felt now that they were not honest. But
there was a bitter feeling of disappointment in coming to this resolve;
for it had been so pleasant to get away from the refinements of home
with its choice cookery, plate, glass, and fine linen, to the boisterous
welcome he always had at Old Poltree's neat cottage. How delicious the
baked hake was, and how luscious the conger pie!--though they were as
nothing to the split and grilled fish he caught himself; and Hezz's
mother was always ready to cook for the two boys.
And now it was all over; but still he might go and climb to the steep
edge, from whence he could look down on the whitewashed cottages, the
busy harbour, and the boats.
This he did, and grew quite excited as he saw that the revenue cutter
was lying off the point, a couple of miles out, as if watching the
place.
"Poor old Hezz!" he said to himself bitterly, "I hope they will not take
him."
Then incongruously enough he smiled as he thought of the boy's breaking
voice.
They'd laugh at him if they heard him croak and squeak as he does now,
and perhaps let him off because he's only a boy. But it would be
horrible for the other men.
"Why, father's a magistrate too," said the lad suddenly, "and he'd be
with the others who punished them for smuggling if it was found out. Oh,
I can't go and tell what I know! It would be horrid."
Lance lay there upon the warm cliff for some time thinking, and then he
started and looked down, wondering at what was to him quite a marvel.
For there, moving slowly, about a hundred feet below him, was his
cousin, threading his way amongst the masses of granite tangled with
brambles, in a part where there was no path, nothing more than a faint
track or two made by the grazing sheep, and it seemed unaccountable.
"What's he doing there?" muttered Lance. "He must be looking for me.
Well, let him look. I don't want him. If I shout to him he'll only come
and begin to preach at me in his pompous way. When I'm in a good temper
it only makes me laugh; but I'm in a bad temper now, and if he begins I
shall feel as if I must punch his head."
So Lance lay and watched, making unpleasant remarks the while, all of a
derisive nature. He watched till Alfred had disappeared beyond the chaos
of rocks which had fallen from above, and at last he strolled back home,
forgetting all about his cousin till he took his place at the
luncheon-table, and felt surprised to see him there, looking quite cool
and as if he had passed the morning reading in the shade.
There was another surprise for Lance before he left the table, the
squire letting fall the announcement that Captain Barry was going to
dine there at six o'clock that evening.
"So you boys will have to put on your best manners."
"Who's Captain Barry, father?"
"To speak correctly, he is Lieutenant Barry, my boy, and is in command
of the revenue cutter lying on and off. They are giving us all a good
hunt up, for he tells me that there has been a great deal of smuggling
carried on along this coast; but I told him the only smuggling about
here is the smuggling of fish."
Lance felt that the tips of his ears turned hot, and thought that they
must be red. He knew that this was the opportunity for telling all he
had found out, but somehow the words would not come.
The officer was rowed ashore from the cutter that evening, and the
squire had walked down to the tiny harbour, with the two boys, to meet
him, and find him a frank, pleasant, middle-aged man, who, for some
reason, had never been promoted.
He shook hands, and Lance turned scarlet, and then glanced shoreward, to
see that Hezz was busy turning the clumsy boat half inside the cavern,
and that the big trousers and boots were up on the shelf, while the men
inside them seemed to be gazing out to sea in search of a coming shoal.
The officer was very pleasant and frank during his stay. He chatted with
the boys and asked them if they would like to go to sea; but somehow he
found Lance dull and glum, and the boy's father bantered him that night
after the visitor had gone back to the cutter.